What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Storytelling Checklist

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this list of 6 vital storytelling ingredients from my book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Evaluate the submission—and your own first page—in terms of whether or not it includes each of these ingredients, and how well it executes them. The one vital ingredient not listed is professional-caliber writing because that is a must for every page, a given.

Story questions

Tension (in the reader, not just the characters)

Voice

Clarity

Scene-setting

Character

Matthias has sent the prologue and first chapter of Tim Walkers.

But first . . . Matthias writes from the Netherlands that English is not his first language, nor even his second, and his English is self-taught. Nonetheless, here he is, putting his writing out there for the world to see.

Writers, you gotta love ‘em.

The Prologue (Note: because it’s
short, I’m going to give you the whole prologue rather than just the first
page)

It had to be done. The young baby boy sobbing softly in his arms expressed disagreement but Marlin knew better. It was for the boy's own good. He had to sacrifice his dear baby son to the orphanage.

What kind of hellish pit would he be casting his son in to? What would become of the boy?

He
had wondered these things countless times before. But committing his son to the
grim-looking orphanage might be the only chance they'd have. The only chance
for truth to prevail. The truth that Marlin had labored to uncover for years. A
truth that would most likely kill him. The truth about Moncento, the corporation
to which he was about to deliver his son.

Timing was of the essence.

With a sigh he exhaled the prospect of death. Carefully he kissed the small, whimpering, boy on the forehead.

"May the gods be with you Tim. All of them" he spoke to the boy as he placed him on the cold ground.

The irony was agonizing. But there was no alternative. He had to desert his next-of-kin on the doorsteps of his very worst enemies. The boy was beautiful, the diffused morning-sun illuminating his soft skin, as if the infant radiated a soft glow into the dreary world surrounding him. Unable to tear his eyes from the poor baby Marlin rose to his feet, his fingers trembling. He reached for the door bell and rang it. He did not wait to see if anyone had heard the desolate note that lingered in the air.

He yanked his head around and ran away. From his pocket he retrieved a pistol. With the confidence of an experienced soldier he popped off the safety lock. It had to be done.

Tim Walkers was his name. The small note that had been left with him had only those two words on it; Tim Walkers. It was written in an elegant but unfamiliar hand and the boy's only treasure. Today was his ninth birthday.

But there were no presents, there was no family, no relations; no one wished him "many more years to come". He was raised an orphan, alone.

Not that it mattered, he was used to celebrating his birthday in loneliness. Moreover, the years to come wouldn't likely be many and it would unwise to wish for them.

Tim was a small boy, small enough to have people guessing about his age. His short hair dark-blonde, the ends scattered over his forehead. Under the boy's brows a pair of green eyes witnessed the malevolent world around him with ever-growing despise.

With what little strength was left in his arms Tim raised his shovel and scooped a few coals in the blazing kiln before him. The fire consumed its dark meal happily. Just as Tim wiped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his jacket; five painfully loud beeps rendered the raging fires inaudible for a moment.

Tim immediately dropped his shovel, as did all the other boys who attended the factory's fires. As it clattered to the ground; a few embers fell, unnoticed, to the planked floor.

The story questions were almost enough to get me to turn the page on the first chapter. While the prologue was interesting and did raise good questions, the “real” story starts with the boy, and I’d much rather start there.

The first chapter isn’t as successful as a scene as the prologue was—the scene isn’t set, and it opens with backstory about his birthday (perhaps to get his age in, but still . . .). The embers on the floor promise dangerous action ahead, and
that’s good. But the story is told from a distant author’s point of view. I’d
much rather that it immersed me in the boy’s experience and helped me feel what
is happening as he does. Best of luck, Matthias.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Storytelling Checklist

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this list of 6 vital storytelling ingredients from my book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Evaluate the submission—and your own first page—in terms of whether or not it includes each of these ingredients, and how well it executes them. The one vital ingredient not listed is professional-caliber writing because that is a must for every page, a given.

Story questions

Tension (in the reader, not just the characters)

Voice

Clarity

Scene-setting

Character

Jenny has sent the first chapter ofThe Gift of Light.

The
winding road to Hook Pond appeared stark and bleak in the mid-January sun.
Young Emily Bell never traveled the road in the winter before and the terrain
matched her mood exactly. On her last trip to Hook Pond she had been most
happy, excited at the prospect of spending the whole summer with her Aunt Gemma
at Perry House. Her heart was heavy and sad as she made the trip now. Just like
the trees, she felt stark and bleak.

This journey, it seemed, was the longest ten-year-old Emily had ever taken. She
could not wait to be free of the state social worker who had been assigned to
take her on this trip. Ms. Standish had not spoken more than a handful of words
to her since they set out from Queens, earlier that morning. It was not that
she seemed unfriendly to Emily, just she was distant. Distant as almost
everyone tended to be since her father had passed away, nearly two weeks ago.

Heaving a sigh, Emily thought of her father now. His death left a gaping hole
inside of her that made her feel as if she were being sucked into the black
darkness of it. Her father always drove her to East Hampton himself every
summer as far back as she could remember. The trip had always been an
adventure. She would stick her head out the window and loved the feel of the
dappled sunlight hitting her face as it shone through the dense foliage of the
heavily wooded area. Breathing in the salty tang of the air so close to the
ocean enhanced the wonder of being away from the city.

While
the writing is solid, for me this lacked the tension of story questions. Oh,
there’s the overall question of what will happen to the orphan, but there’s no
hint of jeopardy or stakes. Later in the chapter, though, we learn that a
couple of angels are watching her arrive, and that one of them is assigned to
protect her because the Lord has plans for Emily. Now that’s the kind of stuff
that can make for a strong first page.

More
than that, though, is the distant approach. While it isn’t “wrong” to begin a
story with telling and backstory, it runs counter to my philosophy of
storytelling. I wrote about this recently in a sample edit for a writer because
she began her narrative with telling what was happening instead of immersing us
in the experience of the character (and thus the story). How much better would
it be if this story opened with the girl’s encounter with the angel, if that
happens? Or a scene in which she is threatened by something and the angel steps
in, only to not completely succeed? I think that this story starts too soon and
too distant to engage this particular reader.

Try immersing
yourself in the character’s experience in a scene in which things happen to her
that mean trouble and starting with that. You can weave in the backstory as you
involve us with what’s happening in the now of her story.

Novels are a “complete”
storytelling medium. By that I mean that we authors can do everything it
takes to bring a story alive in the mind of a reader:

Create a world through word pictures and action

Create conflict between characters or other forces

Create character and personality through imagery and action

Show the thoughts of characters

Create story with a sequence of words, actions, or events

Authors stage things exactly the way they want them

Authors are directors who have their characters do exactly
as they wish in what they say, or do, or how they appear

Authors are the actors in a story, too, otherwise they wouldn’t
be able to illustrate characters and action with their words—it’s the writer
who puts the scowl on a character’s face

Authors have absolute control over what goes on the page
(yes, editors are a factor, but the final word is the author’s)

Movies are a
fantastic and amazing storytelling device and can do some things better than a
novel (a scream is really a scream in a movie), but I don’t think they’re as
complete a medium as a novel.

While a movie can show a scene quickly without using all
those words a novel would take, it can’t imbue the scene with characterization
the way a novel can with experiential description

A movie can include the thoughts of a character, but imperfectly—does
the expression on an actor’s face communicate the richness of inner monologue?
Can a voiceover be anything but an intrusion on a movie scene where a thought
in a novel is a natural part of the fabric?

A director can't absolutely control everything in a scene--he/she will come very, very close, but I'll wager that directors often end up with shortcomings that they just couldn't fix

Comics, on the other
hand, can do it all

These are from In the
Beginning, a comic strip I developed years ago and never found a home for.
It grew out of an even older strip that was a spoof of the Tarzan stories and
that were published in a Philadelphia newspaper for 6 months before I retired
it. The paper is now gone as well. But even these few examples show what a
simple comic can do.

Create a world—note the little treehouse they live in, the
volcano in the background. And the characters add emotional content and
conflict

Thanks to the thought balloon, you can show thoughts that
give insight into a character.

Same here

And conflict—well, that’s just a matter of creating characters
who are in opposition because of what they think, do, and believe.

And finally, there’s the opportunity to focus on great
themes such as chocolate.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Storytelling Checklist

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this list of 6 vital storytelling ingredients from my book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Evaluate the submission—and your own first page—in terms of whether or not it includes each of these ingredients, and how well it executes them. The one vital ingredient not listed is professional-caliber writing because that is a must for every page, a given.

Story questions

Tension (in the reader, not just the characters)

Voice

Clarity

Scene-setting

Character

Trevor has sent the prologue and chapter of On Time.

Prologue:

Time travel was possible after all.

The problem was eventually cracked in the early ’20s by a team of graduate students at UC Berkeley. They knew they were on the right
track when they picked up a radio message in the lab, a message that they would
send five months later.

Once the formal announcement was made, the media spoke of nothing else. Every newspaper was emblazoned with MAN CONQUERS TIME, every site and stream delivered round-the-clock updates covering the global orgy of speculation. Scientists were interviewed who by turns hailed the breakthrough as the single most critical event in our history, or espoused their own theory of how this would lead inexorably to humanity’s destruction. Religious leaders universally decried it as a sin against God, while pundits held forth about the thorny problem of its legislation.

Yet week after week passed without humanity winking out of existence. There were no horsemen and no trumpets. The riots were fewer and
farther apart; people returned to work; the pundits shifted their attention to
a breaking presidential sex scandal. For most of the world, life eased back
into normality.

And far beyond the hastily erected barbed wire fences, past the 24-hour armed guard, deep underground in a utility-plant–cum–Berkeley-lab, the original research team—at the gentle request of their newly appointed military counterparts—quietly stepped up their schedule.
Would you turn the page after the prologue?

Chapter 1 opening:

“Hey prof, you know time stuff, right? Quick question.”

Professor Abel frowned slightly and closed his eyes, pressed his fingertips against his temples. In the wake of the announcement last month, he’d become a bit of a minor celebrity. The most immediate effect of this was
that he’d spent much of the past three weeks trying to explain the basics of
temporal mechanics to inquisitive parties, with varying degrees of success. His
enthusiasm for the whole thing was wearing dangerously thin. “Let’s hear it.”

The student hesitated. “You know the grandfather paradox? Like, if I go back in time and kill my own grandfather before my father is
born. What happens if I really do that?”

Abel nodded. He’d fielded this one a lot. “The short answer is that you can’t.”

The kid was undeterred. “Yeah, I read that, but none of the articles talk about the big problem,” replied the kid. Nick, that was his name. A decent student. Not one of his best. “What if I did manage to go back and, like, find my own grandfather, and then I point a gun at him and pull the trigger. I mean, what happens? Do I disappear, or…”

Abel watched the last few stragglers from his class as they filed out. One girl dropped her phone and bent over to pick it up, affording
him a criminal display of cleavage. His mind began to wander; he wished he weren’t on the wrong side of forty.

The
writing is solid—I love getting clean writing—but I guess I’m just a tension
junkie, and there wasn’t enough of a hit in either the prologue or chapter
opening to energize a need to read. I felt that the prologue was mostly backstory that wasn’t
really necessary. The one tension-inducing element for me was that the military
had some requests of the time-travel team. But, even then, it seems like it
would be better to get to the consequences of those requests.

And,
while the first chapter does show us character, that character is bored and
hardly threatened by the student’s question. I think a couple of things:

1. We
don’t need to establish the when and how of discovering time travel unless it
has bearing on the story. Just start with it in existence and how it is
affecting the lives of characters.

2. I
think the story starts way too early in chapter 1. If the professor is the
protagonist, start with him at a point of change where the stakes are high and
he needs to act.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Storytelling Checklist

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this list of 6 vital storytelling ingredients from my book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Evaluate the submission—and your own first page—in terms of whether or not it includes each of these ingredients, and how well it executes them. The one vital ingredient not listed is professional-caliber writing because that is a must for every page, a given.

Story questions

Tension (in the reader, not just the characters)

Voice

Clarity

Scene-setting

Character

Renee has sent the prologue and first chapter ofBlurring Reality.

Prologue:

She ran.

She fled from a night of betrayal and death into the growing
light of dawn until she couldn’t run anymore. Her lungs were on fire, her heart
jackhammered against her ribs; her legs were pillars of stone. She collapsed
among the scarred roots of an ancient tree and let the tears and grief come.

She cried for the dead. She cried for a lost past and a
bleak future. She didn’t, couldn’t, trust anyone now. Safety lay in keeping the
secret many would be tempted to sell or exploit. To kill for.

The sun was a searing orange ball above the horizon before
she finally emptied. Wearily she wiped the last tears away. It was time to move
on. They’d be hunting her. He’d be hunting her. She looked down at the
thick band circling her wrist and shuddered: it’d have to be cut off as soon as
possible.

She took several deep breaths and stood slowly on trembling
legs. Running herself into the ground—literally she thought wryly leaning
against the cool bark—hadn’t been smart. She couldn’t afford the weakness. She
had to be aware and ready at all times so that—come to think of it, where the
hell was she?

Baron bit out one final curse
and slapped the radio transmitter on. Receiving clearance, he triggered the ion
engines, daring any malfunctions or idiot pilots to impede his steady rise. At
ten thousand feet he shoved the engines to thirty percent and the ship streaked
for open space. Orbital Control contacted him as he cleared the atmosphere
confirming his trajectory, providing last minute traffic updates and wishing
him a pleasant trip. Muttering a few wishes himself, he kicked the engines to
full burn and relinquished control to his ship.

“Thor, display planetary view on
main screen.”

Fourteen years as a Tracker...Baron
folded his arms across his chest as the comp brain complied with the order…a
reputation for finding anybody this side of the incinerator...he leaned
back in his seat, crossed his ankles on top of the console and scowled at the
slowly shrinking image on the large screen above his control panel…and she
still leaves me floundering like a trainee sniffing out his first trail.

The woman was supposed to be an
assassin, not a damn ghost. The way she just vanished, slipping in and out of
buildings, cities—hell, entire solar systems, was frustrating and annoying
and—and who the hell would’ve expected her to sign up to work at the Euphrates
mining colony on Pappia?

Despite
some clichéd description (lungs on fire, jackhammering heart), the writing is good and there were strong story questions
that interested me. However, the lack of identity of the
protagonist of the prologue kept me at a distance. There was only one paragraph left in the prologue,
and I wanted more of her story after reading the whole thing.

So I was
disappointed when chapter one turned out to be an expository narrative
introducing someone else. Renee did a good job of connecting the prologue
person with the narrative in the first chapter, something that is often
missing. But the first chapter turned out to continue in the same expository
fashion as the first page, setting things up. It lacked jeopardy for the
character, and no stakes if he fails in his mission to find the woman. I think
this story starts later. I assume the woman’s story, the one I really wanted to
hear, is secondary to the male character’s, and that’s why he’s the lead
chapter. Too bad.

I can tell you from conversations with colleagues that many agents hate them. Frankly, I never had much of an opinion about the prologue until I started talking to other agents about them and reading some of them more carefully.

The truth is that many writers use a prologue as a convenient way to introduce backstory without doing the work it takes to weave it into the book. Let’s face it, it’s a lot easier to write a scene than to slowly unravel the information through the main plotline. I think prologues can often be predictable and lazy. Lazy for the reason I already stated; predictable because I see the same prologue over and over. Thriller writers, for example, love a prologue that introduces the killer making a kill. I’ve seen it a million times.

Editors believe how you handle or mishandle “backstory” is a marker for your ability as a writer. Backstory needs to be insinuated into the narrative, obliquely, as it unfolds. And it’s devilishly hard to do. Prologues are the lazy man’s way of getting all the crap out and onto the page, so that the you can proceed to roll out the plot without any messy explanatory back tracking. Book editors call this an “info dump.”

I know an acquisitions editor who handles lots of fantasy, SF and related work. Writers can submit without an agent, so she sees work before it's gone through the careful hands of the agent. One of her top ten reasons for rejecting a work is "It had a prologue." Oh, she doesn't reject for a prologue alone, but she finds that works with a prologue are more likely to have other problems.

It seems like the FtQ readers who responded to the first poll read prologues a lot more than the pros do. Admittedly, pros and readers are looking for something different in the opening of a novel.

Let me know where you stand on reading and writing prologues.You can choose multiple answers.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Storytelling Checklist

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this list of 6 vital storytelling ingredients from my book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Evaluate the submission—and your own first page—in terms of whether or not it includes each of these ingredients, and how well it executes them. The one vital ingredient not listed is professional-caliber writing because that is a must for every page, a given.

Story questions

Tension (in the reader, not just the characters)

Voice

Clarity

Scene-setting

Character

Lexi, in response to my plea for submissions has sent a revision ofher Ice Diaries that includes a new prologue. A poll on prologues follows the critique.

Prologue:

Morgan put one foot in front of the other, the snow crunching beneath his boots. One step at a time and he’d get there. A full moon shone blue and white on the undulating surface. Less than a mile away, City of London skyscrapers emerged from twenty metres of snow like the tombstones of a dead civilization. From a few of the nearer buildings thin smoke trailed through the clean air towards myriad stars glittering coldly above. He did not notice the beauty of the night; he had other preoccupations. Unless he reached the source of one of those wisps of smoke he would die.

Not far now, he could make it. The gash on his ribs gaped with every gasping breath, blood seeping. He battled pain, cold, hunger and exhaustion as if they were a tough opponent in the cage; keep fighting however much punishment you take, don’t admit the possibility of tapping out.

The weight of his backpack dragged him down. Its contents were no good to him any more. He shrugged the thing off and let it thump to the ground without a backward glance, staggered on for fifty metres then fell to his knees and began to crawl.

Today is Monday, 30th April 2018 (Nina maintains I have got a day ahead so it’s Sunday 29th, but she is wrong.) This is the start of my new journal, where I will record all the details of my life after the collapse of civilization.

Today no snow fell, the first time for months, and the sun shone in a brilliant blue sky. With luck there’ll be icicles, so much easier to melt than snow. Greg called, as he does most days, doing his rounds. He banged on the window, slid open the patio door and came in. I gave him a Mars bar. I once joked he runs a protection racket – we all got into the habit of giving him stuff when he arrived, because he seemed so helpless – and he took up the idea, though he interprets it his own way. He likes to think he protects us, checking up on our small community each day, carrying messages and doing a bit of trading. He put his bag on the kitchen counter and his gloves to warm over my wood burning stove while he ate it. The snow melted off his boots and pooled on the stone-effect tiles. I peered into the open top of his bag.

“What’s that you’ve got there, Greg?” He took out an A4 notebook, black with a scarlet spine, and handed it to me. I opened it. Crisp off-white pages, with faint blue lines and a margin at the top. I had a sudden fancy to start a diary. I made him an offer. “A tin of sardines?”

The prologue, well written as always, raises great story questions. So good, in fact, that it’s a disappointment when I turn the page and it’s not Morgan’s story anymore.

The reference to the collapse of civilization in the first chapter is a definite improvement, but then we settle down to an easy-going domestic scene. It sets the world nicely, but there’s really no particular jeopardy foreseeable for the journal writer. Can’t you find the point where something happens to her that twists her life into knots and fill in the world and characters around that? I really like the voice and the writing, just want more of that irritating tension stuff.

So do you read prologues? Ones that are on just one page, as this one would be, are more tempting because they’re bite-sized. But, still, with a prologue you know that it isn’t the “real” story.

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Storytelling Checklist

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this list of 6 vital storytelling ingredients from my book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Evaluate the submission—and your own first page—in terms of whether or not it includes each of these ingredients, and how well it executes them. The one vital ingredient not listed is professional-caliber writing because that is a must for every page, a given.

Story questions

Tension (in the reader, not just the characters)

Voice

Clarity

Scene-setting

Character

Meredith has sent the first chapter of The Diaspora(YA).

I’ve learned two important lessons while masquerading as a Hawthorne Youth Outpost cadet. One: dress like a cudgel long enough and you think like a cudgel.

I should have just let him take the bread. But that’s a cudgel for you. Instead of keeping my mind on my goal, on gaining a berth on the Cor Moon shuttle, all I can think is: I don’t want that jack to have our food.

Lester leans in. His breath is humid – warm and musty from the protein stew we’ve all been eating. His free hand presses against my chest, pins me to the cement block, and I’m thanking the Fourteenth God I took the time to bind my breasts this morning. I don’t always, not since winter set in. Four layers of synthowool hide my figure better than all the med-stretch tape on Artakin.

Inviting voice, good writing, conflict, a girl posing as a boy to get on a moon shuttle, story questions—how’s she going to get out of this—made this an easy page-turn for me. Nice stuff. Just a few notes:

I’ve learned two important lessons while masquerading as a Hawthorne Youth Outpost cadet. One: dress like a cudgel long enough and you think like a cudgel.

And two, cudgels are idiots.

Lester Jyles hauls me to my feet and slams my head against the mess hall wall. My boots dangle a foot above the scuffed linoleum. My windpipe collapses under his hairy forearm. Bravo Company falls silent. Even the distant clatter of dishes getting manhandled by grunts on jankers duty dies away. I question the use of “collapses” for her windpipe. Seems that would be permanent damage, and I’m not sure I find it credible that someone would go on thinking about stuff when their windpipe is literally collapsed/crushed.

I should have just let him take the bread. But that’s a cudgel for you. Instead of keeping my mind on my goal, on gaining a berth on the Cor Moon shuttle, all I cancould think iswas: I don’t want that jack to have our food.

Lester leans in. His breath is humid – warm and musty from the protein stew we’ve all been eating. His free hand presses against my chest, pins me to the cement block, and I’m thanking the Fourteenth God I took the time to bind my breasts this morning. I don’t always, not since winter set in. Four layers of synthowool hide my figure better than all the med-stretch tape on Artakin. Love the way the breast-binding fires up story questions and characterizes in just one line.

And I never have been. What about you? Is writing your book something you do when you can snatch a little time to work, or can you devote full time?

I have, however, always been a writer for a living. I started out as a writer of programmed-learning training materials for State Farm Insurance in their home office in Bloomington, Illinois. After a few years, I transferred to the advertising department and mainly wrote brochure copy.

Then I got into the advertising agency world in Chicago, Illinois, and mostly did that for the rest of my career, eventually becoming a senior VP and the agency creative director for a mid-sized national agency. During that time I became interested in screenwriting and worked on scripts in my spare time.

Left Chicago advertising to work on screenwriting in L.A. For a time I was independent and did freelance ad work while writing screenplays. Then another day job: story editor/scriptwriter for an animation company.

I left that and went on my own. For a few years, with no day job, I developed and tried to market a couple of comic strips (yep, I’m a cartoonist, too) and a newspaper column on advertising. I wrote a proposal for a book on advertising creative strategy and came a whisker from having it accepted (wasn’t famous enough, and early version of “platform”). But I didn't really work on novels.

After going back into advertising for a while (and finally started writing novels in the early mornings), I landed a job as web editor/content provider for a university. Still writing, but in a whole new realm. Then I was tapped to create a video team at the university and my work went back to scriptwriting with editing and production thrown in. And worked on novels in spare time.

So I’ve been lucky enough to work as a creative and as a writer for my entire career, and know that it has helped me grow in my work as a novelist and as an editor.

Oh, and I’ve always been a little bit of an inventor, too, and am now working on a couple of new card games that you’ll hear about in the future.

But I’d still love to be able to devote full time to just writing novels. Ahhh, that would be good.

What about you? When do you do your writing? In the early hours? Late?

What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page (first pages of chapters/prologues start about 1/3 of the way down the page). Directions for submissions are below.

A word about the line-editing in these posts: it’s “one-pass” editing, and I don’t try to address everything, which is why I appreciate the comments from the FtQ tribe. In a paid edit, I go through each manuscript three times.

Storytelling Checklist

Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this list of 6 vital storytelling ingredients from my book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells. While it's not a requirement that all of these elements must be on the first page, they can be, and I think you have the best chance of hooking a reader if they are.

Evaluate the submission—and your own first page—in terms of whether or not it includes each of these ingredients, and how well it executes them. The one vital ingredient not listed is professional-caliber writing because that is a must for every page, a given.

I kept my gaze fixed on a wellspring of water; the last place I had seen my beloved alive, broadsword raised, screaming in rage before disappearing into the smoke of enemy fire.

The dead of Chatten: Mackintosh, MacGillivray, MacPherson, and McBean lay strewn before me--some three, and four deep. The corbie’s cawed brazenly, disturbed by my presence from their ghoulish feast. I said a brief prayer, and began to examine the faces of the dead. I committed their names to memory as I could.

I found my brother Robert, propped up against the bodies of our men. Our father, Simon, lay lifeless cradled upon his lap. The brave clansmen of MacGillivray of Dunlichity, lay surrounding their chief, as if in death they had rallied to one final macabre embrace.

I knelt beside them, cold wetness seeping through the layers of my skirts. I laid a hand upon each chest felt fleeting life in one. “Rob?” I caressed his face, called to him again. Blood crusted eyelids fluttered and then opened. No words sounded but my name was upon his lips.

The scenario is interesting, and there were story questions for me. The voice is good and seems appropriate for the era. There were craft shortcomings, though, comma faults (some missing and some that shouldn’t be there) and misspellings—the ms will need a good copyediting, I suspect. Notes:

Drumossie Moor, Scotland16 April 1746

Acrid smoke drifted across the battlefield. Bodies lay strewn across the sloping moor. Cries of mercy, pleas of aidaide, echoed beneath the leaden sky. Unless you think “aid” was archaically spelled with an e, “aide” means a person, not assistance—and wouldn’t it be pleas for aid, not of?

I ignored them all.

I kept my gaze fixed on a wellspring of water; the last place I had seen my beloved alive, broadsword raised, screaming in rage before disappearing into the smoke of enemy fire.

The dead of Chatten: Mackintosh, MacGillivray, MacPherson, and McBean lay strewn before me--some three, and four deep. The corbie’scorbies cawed brazenly, disturbed by my presence from their ghoulish feast. I said a brief prayer, and began to examine the faces of the dead. I committed their names to memory as I could.

I found my brother Robert, propped up against the bodies of our men. Our father, Simon, lay lifeless, cradled upon his lap. The brave clansmen of MacGillivray of Dunlichity, lay surrounding their chief, as if in death they had rallied to one final macabre embrace.

I knelt beside them, cold wetness seeping through the layers of my skirts. I laid a hand upon each chest and felt fleeting life in one. “Rob?” I caressed his face, called to him again. Blood-crusted eyelids fluttered and then opened. No words sounded, but my name was upon his lips.